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Vivian Ojimadu

Professor Peter Fields

UWRT 1102

1 February 2017

Healthcare Reform in the United States

Recent politics has been surrounding the issue of universal healthcare.

Politicians have been questioning the recently coined Affordable Care Act,

Obamacare. The implementation of a universal healthcare system in the

United States would directly affect all citizens both positively and negatively.

Examples of decreased premiums for some and increased premiums for

others is an example of this impact. As a citizen that directly benefits from

the Affordable Care Act I stand by its legality and the idea that affordable

healthcare should be a natural right of all citizens. The lack of universal

healthcare in a developed nation such as the United States is a moral issue

in itself (Galarneau, 2015). The United States and Mexico are the only

countries of the 34 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation

and Development (OECD) that do not have universal health care. The United

States is the only industrialized nation that does not provide a reliable

system of healthcare for all of its citizens. The United States offers and

guarantees all citizens an education, access to fire and police services, a

national postal service, protection by the military, a national park system,

and many other federal- and state-funded services (Bauchner, 2017). Yet the

United Sates still lacks some solid form of accessible and affordable
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healthcare to all citizens. This is because healthcare is not regarded to as a

natural human right like those specified to all citizens in the Bill of Rights.

The Declaration of Independence states that all men have unalienable

Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,

which means that citizens need healthcare so as to achieve life ad be able to

pursue happiness. The purpose of the US Constitution, as stated in the

Preamble, is to promote the general welfare of the people. Congressman

Dennis Kucinich even stated that, as part of efforts to promote the general

welfare, health care is a legitimate function of government (Kucinich,

2015). The Obama administration worked diligently to expand the former

Affordable Care Act. Obamacare, as it has been coined, has guaranteed and

expanded healthcare to some thousand Americans who were not previously

insured under the former Affordable Care Act (Bauchner, 2017). Much

remains to be modified and amended regarding the current Affordable Care

Act. Under the Trump administration however we have seen a stark shift in

providing universal healthcare for the masses. Private insurance corporations

under the Obama administration were lessoned but under the Trump

administration their high premium rates and low quality guarantees have

been almost solidified. It is believed that the lack of a universal healthcare

affects the uninsured solely. However, the insured are just as effected as the

uninsured. More and more companies are removing health insurance to their

employees thereby causing more and more middleclass Americans to go

without insurance. This has left the burden of high premiums and those
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medical bills of the uninsured on the insured. Also, many employees of those

companies that do continue to offer insurance, are seeing smaller pay

increases due to companies having to compensate for the never-ending

increase in healthcare costs. The main question discussed when considering

universal healthcare is if it is feasible for the United States a nation already

rippled with billions of dollars in their national deficient (Chau, 2016).

Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance

Program, all government programs that provide a right to health care for

certain segments of the population, totaled less than 10% of the federal

budget in 1985, but by 2012 these programs took up 21% of the federal

budget. This is a huge increase and is a reason why the united states

deficient is so high. Obamacare will increase the federal deficit by $340-$700

billion in the first 10 years, and could increase the deficit to $1.5 trillion in

the second 10 years. Even with all of this spending still many of Americans

are left without insurance. The cost of universal health care would be at least

$34-$69 billion, plus whatever costs are associated with covering out-of-

pocket expenses and uncompensated care for the uninsured. Specific

solutions may allow for even more spending. This is still far less than what

the nation spends on programs like universal healthcare instead of simply

implementing the program. The question that remains is do the costs of not

having a universal healthcare system outweigh the costs of simply providing

universal access.
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Corporate interests instilled in monetary gains from high health

insurance premiums and the prescription/medication industry strive to keep

the current medical practice of the United States in play. These people view

healthcare as a personal choice guaranteed to the wealthy as opposed to a

basic human right (Rudiger, 2015). Resistance is expected from those who

are benefitting from the current health of the nation. In the private health

insurance system, low-income people pay proportionally more for health care

than the wealthy, while receiving lower value insurance plans. The current

systems benefit the rich while crippling the poor and uninsured. The United

States also spends more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any

other advanced country in the world and has worse health outcomes with

lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and higher obesity rates than

almost all the other advanced and devolved nations. How then are we

continuing to spend billions of tax payer dollar on a broken, insufficient

system.

The issue is that although much of our nation greatly needs the

inaction of a universal healthcare system an even greater portion of our

society is individualistic. Americans, and conservatives in particular, have a

strong belief in liberalism and the idea that the government should play a

limited role in society. Given that universal coverage inherently clashes with

this belief in individualism and limited government, it is perhaps not

surprising that it has never been enacted in America even as it has been

enacted elsewhere. Many Americans do not believe in crippling the lower and
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middle class any more than they already have with programs such as

Medicaid and food stamps (Callaghan, 2016). Lobbyists and interests groups

are hard at work, spending billions to ensure that private insurers maintain

their status in the health system. It is said that the government is merely a

puppet being strum by these interests groups. That massive corporations

are really the ones controlling our government and our healthcare systems.

Every single corner of the health care industry is completely saturated with

similar corporate policies that the performance of an industry existing in a so

called "free market" is likely inefficient. If it were possible to have a universal

healthcare system, the United States it should be existent. However,

corporatist control of American democracy is so great that any competitive

advantage universal coverage would quickly become a continued bi-partisan

effort to make healthcare as expensive and profitable as possible (Feasley,

2015).

What matters most is that healthcare, and quality healthcare, is at

least accessible to all Americans. The gap in the research is clear. Before the

implementation of a universal coverage system it must first be ensured that

this system is accessible to all Americans. There is no current research or

study on the implementation of a successful universal system of healthcare

to a nation as large as the United States. Therefore, it is apparent that to

effectively see both the benefits and or detriments of a universal coverage

program, the United States must first enact the program on the basis of
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ensuring the greatest good to its citizens. To ensure the greatest health of its

society the United States must look into total healthcare reform.

Work Cited

Vladeck, Bruce. "Universal Health Insurance in the United States: Reflections

on the Past, the Present, and the Future." American Journal of Public Health.

American Journal of Public Health 2003, Jan. 2003. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

/.latest_citation_text

Rudiger, Anja. "Why Universal Health Care Is Essential for a More Equitable

Society." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 31 Mar. 2015.

Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

"Should the USA Implement Single Payer Universal Health Care?" Should the

USA Implement Single Payer Universal Health Care? - Quora. N.p., n.d.

Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

Conversation, The. "3 Reasons the U.S. Doesn't Have Universal Health

Coverage." U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report, 26

Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

"E-Journals A-Z - J. Murrey Atkins Library - UNC Charlotte." E-Journals A-Z - J.

Murrey Atkins Library - UNC Charlotte. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

Research for Universal Health Coverage. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health

Organization, 2013.
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